


Meeting the Family

by Kate_Lear



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-13
Updated: 2010-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:04:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Lear/pseuds/Kate_Lear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock meets John’s family. In response to <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/shkinkmeme/5516.html?thread=9626764#t9626764">this prompt</a>, which asked for established relationship fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting the Family

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to [mistyzeo](http://mistyzeo.livejournal.com/) and [innie_darling](http://innie-darling.livejournal.com/) for beta-reading.
> 
> [Also in Chinese](http://kiy900.livejournal.com/1144.html), translated by [kiy900](http://kiy900.livejournal.com/).

When Sherlock gets the text message ( _2pm. Outside café opposite the National Gallery. Come alone. Don’t tell *anyone*, otherwise the meeting’s off._ ), his first reaction is to go along with it. It’s in a public place, after all, so there’s no real danger involved. He throws on his coat and leaves, calling something vague in reply to John’s query as to where he’s off to.

When he gets to Trafalgar Square, he makes for the café; just a small place, with a few tables outside that are occupied here and there by tourists and couples.

Apart from one.

At a table in the corner, a woman sits alone, drinking a coffee, sunglasses concealing her eyes. Nevertheless, Sherlock can feel her gaze trained on him and, when he looks more closely at her, he knows who she is.

He ought to have expected this, really.

‘Harry Watson.’ It’s not so much of a question as it is a statement. The woman has the same nose as John, the same determined chin, and almost the same jaw line, the angle of it softened to a woman’s face.

‘Sherlock Holmes. I recognise you from your picture on John’s blog.’ Removing her sunglasses, she casts her eyes over him, as though he were a car she was thinking of buying. ‘I must say, I wasn’t expecting you to be quite so tall. You must _tower_ over him.’

‘I do.’ He’s rather taken aback by her easy air of familiarity.

‘I suppose it all evens itself out when you’re lying down, though.’ The shock of her words barely registers before she’s rolling her eyes at him and pushing the other chair out with her foot. ‘Sit down, why don’t you. I won’t bite. I should probably apologise in advance for my sense of humour; John’s always telling me I should tone it down.’

‘He’s told you we’re together, then.’ It jars tremendously against his need for privacy, to speak about his personal life so openly, but he’d be a fool if he didn’t guess the reason for this cloak and dagger meeting.

‘Told me? No. But I can tell you two are a couple all the same.’ She smiles enigmatically at him, and pulls out a pack of Marlboro Lights. She lights one, and slides the pack and her lighter across the table to him. Sherlock takes one. John will smell the smoke on him ( _and taste it_ , his mind whispers) when he returns to the flat, but this looks like being a harrowing conversation and he doesn’t think he can navigate it without _some_ sort of artificial relaxant.

He inhales and blows the smoke steadily away from their table, revelling in the heady rush of it. Nicotine patches can’t compete with this.

‘I bought you a coffee, by the way.’ She indicates the second cup on the table. ‘And don’t worry, it’s not drugged.’

‘So if John hasn’t told you,’ he begins, tearing open sugar packets and trying to pretend that he hadn’t, just for a moment, considered the possibility that the cup might have been laced with something, ‘then how do you–’

‘Look,’ Harry interrupts him. He's not used to being interrupted, and the surprise of it derails his train of thought. ‘I know you two are together, and I wanted to meet you. Without John here, preferably, for our first meeting. You know as well as I do that he’ll be silently desperate for us to _get along_.’

The last words are delivered with a sarcastic bite, and Sherlock narrows his eyes. ‘And you’re here to ask me what my intentions are towards your little brother, I suppose. Threaten to hunt me down and kill me if I break his heart? Going to ask me to stop dragging him into dangerous situations every five minutes?’

She smiles at him, unexpectedly, and Sherlock is momentarily thrown by seeing John’s disarming grin on another’s face. ‘God, no. That what he lives for – why do you think he joined the Army? And that conversation has been done to death between us already, believe me. You wouldn’t have wanted to be in our house the day he called and announced that he was signing up.’

And she sobers, just swiftly as she smiled. ‘However, your “intentions”, as you put it, towards him had damn well better be serious. Because I can tell you that his certainly are towards you.’

‘But how do you _know_ that he–‘

‘And if you break his heart…if this is all some game or _experiment_ to you…then I will make your life a living hell, believe me. Oh, I don’t have friends in the government like you do, you public-school kid,’ (Sherlock wonders briefly if Mycroft has been in touch with her) ‘but believe me – as far as I can… to the best of my ability… I _will_ make you miserable.’

Sherlock considers it a mark of success that he has been threatened many times during his career to date, but usually they’re hysterical oaths, flung at him and treated with the disdain they deserve (especially when he has John’s eyes on him, watching to see how he’ll react). This one is different. For a start, Harry doesn’t sound hysterical, or out of control. It would be easier to shrug off if she did. She sounds calm as she flicks the ash off the end of her cigarette, and her brown eyes meet his with nothing but open sincerity.

_Brown eyes, but John’s are blue… therefore at least one of their parents had–_

With an effort he pulls himself back together.

‘Understood,’ he says, quietly. He doesn’t tell her that if he breaks John’s heart then she won’t need to go to the effort of making him miserable, as he will have achieved that quite competently all on his own, thank you very much.

‘You’ll know when you’ve pissed him off,’ she tells him softly, but with a wry twist to her mouth that tells him she’s thinking of past sibling arguments. Memories come to mind of John’s haranguing over his irregular eating habits, and his inability to sleep for more than six hours a night ( _‘You’d be able to sleep longer if you took some bloody_ exercise, _you lazy sod!’ ‘Is that so? Then come here, Doctor, I’ve something in mind…’_ ) and Sherlock smiles involuntarily.

‘Yes, I know. He’s a very open person.’ He can’t believe he’s discussing details of their relationship with this woman he’s never met before, but she’s so very tenacious. Like her brother.

She shrugs again. ‘He cares about people. It’s what he does. I think it’s difficult for him to turn it off, to be honest.’

More memories… John’s face when he heard a child’s voice reciting Moriarty’s insane countdown… his face twisting in disgust when Sherlock is trying to get him to think _logically_ and _dispassionately_ (because when did running around in overemotional hysterics ever solve anything?) and ends up sounding inhuman. But what Sherlock says is: ‘Yes. I’ve seen that.’

‘However, the thing you have to know about him is that when he’s really upset about something – when you’ve _really_ hurt him – he won’t bring it up.’

Sherlock frowns. This new data on John doesn’t fit with what he has observed. ‘Are you sure?’

Harry nods vigorously as she exhales a cloud of smoke.

‘How do you know?’

‘Because,’ her mouth quirks in a sad sort of smile, ‘he’s never once spoken with me about my drinking. Trust me, if you’ve really upset him, you’ll never know until it’s too late. So you need to watch him.’

‘I will,’ Sherlock promises before he can stop himself, and then feels a rush of annoyance at this woman, sitting there interrogating him about his personal life when her own is hardly a shining example of domestic bliss.

‘Look, how do you _know_ all this if he hasn’t told you? Are you paying someone to watch us?’

Harry glares at him, doubtless taking offence at his peremptory tone. ‘I don’t _need_ to pay someone to watch you both. I may not be an “independent consulting detective”,’ (the last time Sherlock heard his job title delivered with such dry sarcasm was from Donovan) ‘but I _am_ his sister. And when my little brother, for the first time in his life, doesn’t talk to me about some girl he’s interested in but _does_ start blogging obsessively about the bloke he’s moved in with, and gets embarrassed when I ask him if you’re sharing a bed as well as a flat… well. Doesn’t take a genius to see what’s happening.’

And that, Sherlock supposes, is entirely true. ‘So you’re going to get him to break up with me if things don’t go well?’

‘Emotionally blackmail him to break up with you? Christ, you really don’t have a high opinion of me, do you?’ Harry looks at him with mild distaste. ‘I wouldn’t do that to him. But I’m the only family he’s got,’ (Sherlock had guessed as much, from the John’s total lack of references to parents, but it’s still a jolt to hear it confirmed aloud) ‘and, despite what he may think, I hate seeing him upset. And it _would_ upset him if he knew I didn’t like you. You must have noticed how he prefers people to get along.’

Harry’s right – as soon as she says that Sherlock’s mind obligingly presents him with a dozen snapshots of John smoothing over the slights caused by Sherlock’s (sometimes unintentional) rudeness. John calming Mrs Hudson after she found the bullet holes in the wall, John getting between him and Lestrade when they’re butting heads, and John hurriedly scoffing at Sherlock’s announcement that Molly’s new boyfriend was gay ( _‘That means nothing – I put product in my hair.’ ‘Point proved’ Sherlock had almost said, before realising that outing his ex-Army boyfriend would_ definitely _incur John’s anger and reining himself in_ ).

Harry runs her eyes over him again in a look that, he’s shocked to realise, is frankly _assessing_. No-one has ever looked at him like that before. Mycroft looks at him with the world-weary resignation of an older sibling, Scotland Yard look at him with hostility (although in Lestrade’s case it’s tinged with grudging respect), and John… John looks at him with humour, exasperation, admiration and, recently, lust. But no-one has ever previously given _him_ the considering look that Harry’s shooting him, that look that he recognises as the one that he himself reserves for particularly incompetent Scotland Yard forensics teams at crime scenes. _Well, you’re not who I would have chosen for the job,_ it says, _but you seem to be the only one who’s available, so I suppose we’ll just have to make the best of it, won’t we?_

He’s too dumbstruck to be offended by it, and Harry continues. ‘I _want_ to like you, Sherlock, I really do. For John’s sake. So don’t fuck this up with him.’

Another shock – no-one has ever declared that they want to like him. People either treat him with polite reserve or suspicion or dislike or, in one special case, astounded delight. No-one has ever told him that they’re entirely prepared to give him their good opinion, but that he’s going to have to work for it.

‘He’s a good man. You’re lucky, Sherlock Holmes,’ she says, softly.

There’s only one answer to that, really, and he gives it. ‘I know.’

Harry stands, and pushes her chair back under the table. ‘Well then, I think that’s all. I’m going to text John this afternoon to invite him out for supper this evening. And I imagine that he’ll invite me round to the flat tomorrow morning, to see where he lives and introduce me to you. Do _try_ to look surprised when you meet me officially.’

And with this parting shot, she walks away.

Sherlock sits for a while longer, his mind racing back over their conversation. He’s never had a job interview in his life before, but he imagines that this is how it must feel. And, disconcertingly, he’s not entirely sure that he was considered the best candidate for the role.

Eventually he leaves also and, since it’s a pleasant afternoon, elects to walk back home. On a whim, he buys milk at the corner shop and flourishes it triumphantly at John when he re-enters the flat, just to hear him chuckle.

When Harry texts her brother, three hours later, Sherlock is careful to point out two separate tells to John that showed him who his text was from (and refrains from adding ‘oh yes, and she also mentioned that she was going to get in touch’).

Later that evening, when John has returned from dinner looking flushed and happy from his family reunion and too much good food ( _‘You went for Italian. How conventional.’ ‘How the hell did you…oh, never mind…’_ ), he sprawls between John’s legs, sucking him lazily and fingering him until John is tense and trembling and his hands are gripping the edges of the bed. Then Sherlock slides back up John’s body and into him in one graceful, easy movement. He bends his head to murmur in John’s ear.

‘I love you.’

It’s not the first time Sherlock has said this, but it _is_ still new enough for John’s blue eyes to open wider as he stares up at Sherlock, John’s hands gripping his upper arms. Although that might be just a reaction to the initial resistance of his body as Sherlock presses in, gently but insistently. This, too, is relatively new between them, especially to John, although Sherlock is experienced enough that he ensured right from the start that John knew how good it could feel.

Later, when John’s eyes have fluttered closed and his breathing has changed to ragged panting and he’s about half a minute, maybe less, away from orgasm, Sherlock repeats himself hoarsely.

‘I love you.’

He doubts that John will remember this, and even doubts whether John has heard him (although he could be wrong, John often surprises him with his attention to important details). But John doesn't seem to be paying attention to anything very much right now except the insistent drugging pleasure of the cock nudging his prostate, and Sherlock’s hand stroking him tightly (John’s been desperately trying to touch himself for the past five minutes and Sherlock kept pushing his hands away before finally taking John’s cock into his grip). But Sherlock says it anyway, and then watches greedily as, thirty seconds later, John’s muscles seize up and he comes over his stomach, groaning Sherlock’s name and a string of profanities.

Afterwards, when John is lying soft and sleepy in his arms, Sherlock repeats himself again into John’s hair. This time is enough to make John stir, and lift his head.

‘What on earth’s got into you today?’ he asks, fighting not to yawn. ‘Is everything all right? Do you have something to confess? Although I shudder to think what it could be, given that you see nothing wrong with bullet holes in the wall and severed heads in the fridge…’

Sherlock shakes his head, smiling, and John’s head sinks back down to rest against his shoulder. Sherlock lies awake for a while, staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows from passing headlights dance and flicker, as the breathing of the man next to him slows and deepens.

\----------

The next day, sure enough, Harry turns up at the flat. Sherlock makes sure that John sees him looking over her hands and shoes and fingernails, so that all the deductions he drew yesterday can now be disclosed with impunity. Harry does a less-than-convincing ‘pleased to meet you’ routine and Sherlock is sure that John suspects something – he’s no fool – until Harry sees the happy face done in bullet holes in the wall, at which point her surprise becomes a lot more genuine and John relaxes.

_He’s a good man… you’re lucky._

Feeling rather awkward, Sherlock offers to make tea and, while John is showing Harry the room upstairs that is slowly becoming his bedroom in name only, discreetly takes the eyeballs out of the microwave and stashes them temporarily on the top shelf in a cupboard. They’ll be found by John two days later, at which discovery he’ll shout in a manner that will make Sherlock dash into the kitchen (entirely convinced that John’s dropped a kettle of boiling water on himself) but, here and now, it’s the thought that counts.

\--End--


End file.
